


Why Kenma dyed his hair

by Nonski



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: I wrote this in 4 hours so don't expect too much, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25935343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonski/pseuds/Nonski
Summary: Kenma finds himself standing in front of a mirror, bleach in his hands. While dying his hair, he reflects back upon his friedship with Kuroo.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	Why Kenma dyed his hair

**Author's Note:**

> I read a ton of Kuroken stories. Reading the Wiki entries, it states that Kuroo likes blonde girls with long hair. NOTHING I have ever read mentioned this as the reason why Kenma dyed his hair. I needed to fix that.
> 
> Stuff that has happened in the past is set in another time format (duh), but to make it clearer (and because I might sometimes mess up), I also put the stuff that has happened in the past in "/"

  1. Wear some old clothes and put on gloves.



It’s stupid, really. It’s a stupid idea and he’s even more stupid for going through with it.  
Still, Kenma finds himself in front of the mirror, wearing old gym clothes and see-through plastic gloves that are way too big for his hands. The noise they make whenever he moves his fingers make the hairs on his body stand up.

  1. Section your hair



While separating big, black strains of his hair and putting them up like he had seen all these pretty girls do it in YouTube videos, Kenma tries to think back on how it started.

He isn’t sure exactly how or when his life had begun to turn into this clusterfuck. It might have been even before kindergarten.

/ The day he first met Kuroo, however, is something he’ll likely never forget.

It had been extremely warm and Kenma had been forced to go to the day care center, because his mother thought he needed to interact more with children.

But the children around him had been loud, whiny and (the worst of all) mean. They had always made fun of Kenma, because he hadn’t been as good at playing police as them, his voice too soft to yell like the others did.

Yet he had been stubborn and sneaky even back then, managing to smuggle in his little GameBoy and getting away from the adults by pretending to use the bathroom. He hadn’t stayed in the bathroom, of course. The chance of children finding him, mocking him for his hair, his voice, his height, calling him a girl and putting his head in the toilet, was just simply a risk too big to take.

He had hidden in the basement, in a room the kindergarten used as a gym. To ensure nobody would find him until lunch, he had crawled behind a big, blue mat that was propped up against a wall.

When someone had suddenly thrown the door open and hurriedly closed behind themselves, Kenma had frozen in place, listening to the slow footsteps creeping closer.

“FUDGE!”, that someone had yelled out abruptly, when they had tried to hide just where Kenma had been, mouth open in shock.  
Then they had laughed.

“Sorry. You scared me. Are you playing hide and seek too?”

Kuroo had been a tall boy with a shiny, bright smile (just like today), illuminated by the light of Kenma’s GameBoy.

Kenma had been too frightened to speak back then. What if he gave away their hideout? Would the boy join the others in beating him up?  
So he had simply shaken his head.

“Oh, okay. Mind if I stay here?”, the boy had whispered, getting another shake of Kenma’s head as an answer.

He had sat down next to Kenma, their bodies only inches apart.

“I like your hair. Looks pretty on you.”, the boy had said.

Kenma had raised an eyebrow and replied that he wasn’t a girl. It was something people had always commented on.

“Oh, that’s awesome. My mum won’t let me grow out my hair. Says it doesn’t suite boys. But it looks cool, you know?”

After a couple of minutes, the boy’s legs had started to bounce up and down.

“What are you playing?”, he had asked Kenma, clearly impatient for the other kids to find him.

Kenma had turned his GameBoy towards him.

“Oh, that’s Mario, right? So cool! My cousin has that game and she sometimes lets me play! I never got further than level four, though.”

He had continued to watch Kenma play, scooting closer carefully, until he had been able to properly look over the smaller kid’s shoulder.

“I’m Kuroo, by the way. Kuroo Tetsurou. But I like it when people call me Kuroo. Like they call adults, you know?”

Kenma had nodded.

“What’s your name?”, Kuroo had wanted to know.

“Kenma.”

After a moment of silence, Kuroo had asked if Kenma was bothered by him being there.

Kenma had given that a thought, because usually, kids (or people in general) did bother him a lot. But Kuroo had been different from the beginning on. Quiet when he had needed to be, but also nice.

In the end, Kuroo had told the other kids he didn’t want to play hide and seek anymore. He had stayed by Kenma’s side until they’d been able to get their lunch, just to run back and hide behind the mat again as soon as they had finished.  
Kenma had asked Kuroo to try out the game, but the other boy had been content to watch.  
By the end of the day, Kuroo’s mother had come to pick him up first, but Kuroo hadn’t let go of Kenma’s hand until Kenma’s mother had been there too.

To be fair, back then, it had seemed like things were looking up. Kuroo had wormed his way into Kenma’s little heart, had proven himself to be a loyal friend, even when the other kids had made fun of him for hanging out with the girly, weak kid. Thanks to Kuroo’s sharp retorts, they had finally stopped making fun of Kenma. /

  1. Mix the bleach powder and developer



The box is shaking in his hands, butterflies flying up in his stomach. Kenma takes a deep breath.  
He’s going to go through with it. It’s going to be fine…

Okay, maybe his mother is going to get extremely angry with him, but it’s _his_ hair and he’s _almost sixteen_ and it’s his body and his choice, so he’ll do it.

It’s not the first time his mother would be disappointed anyways. He remembers it clearly…

/ The way she had cried tears of joy that night after he had met Kuroo. He had heard her talk about it with his face, the relieve she must have felt obvious in her voice.

“He has a friend. He as a real friend. Maybe he _is_ a normal kid.”, she had whispered.

Kenma had cried as well. He hadn’t been enough back then. He had known he was weird, different, but… He had never wanted to make his mother suffer because of it. /

It’s not like he’s enough now, though.

  1. Apply the bleach



Strand after strand, Kenma takes down his hair, wetting them with the bleach thoroughly by using a black rubber brush.

The point of no return has long since passed.

/ Kindergarten had passed in a blur and elementary school afterwards as well. During the breaks, the afternoons and every volleyball practice Kuroo had been able to talk Kenma into, the two boys never left each other on their own for long.  
They had long since become a team and Kenma couldn’t have been happier about it.

He should have known, though, that having friends is also dangerous if you’re that close to them. /

  1. Bleach the higher sections



Kenma has to admit that he is a little scared. He has heard a lot of stories about bleaching gone wrong, leaving the people with burns on their heads. He doesn’t really want to take the risk, so he doesn’t dare to put the bleach up next to the roots of his hair. It’s going to be fine, though, right? It’s not going to look that different.

/ Things had started to turn to shit after Kuroo had left to go to Nekoma High, leaving Kenma to fight on his own for a year.

After some time, the other students had realized that Kenma was again on his own, without someone to protect him, and the bullying started again.  
The had made fun of him for being small and petite. Most of all, they had made fun of his long hair, up to the point that he had been ready to cut it short, had already position himself in front of a mirror, with scissors in his hands. But… He hadn’t been able to do it.

You see, Kuroo had been the polar opposite of Kenma: Loud, self-confident, nice, and _touchy_. He had never really stopped holding Kenma’s hands, even when their bodies had grown from toddlers to kids. He had always pulled Kenma close, slinging an arm around his torso, pulling him in.  
The ~~best~~ most interesting part, though, was the way he had started to graze his fingers through Kenma’s hair occasionally. Sometimes, he’d tuck it behind Kenma’s ears. Other times, he had braided his best friend’s (because that’s what they had become: people who were inseparable) hair, strong fingers working carefully, a pink tongue pressed between red lips in full concentration.  
Kenma had started to enjoy that sensation, having Kuroo’s focus on a part of him like that, feeling taken care of and appreciated.

That’s why he hadn’t been able to get rid of it. What had started out as a way of protecting his face, shielding him from the others, had turned into a way for him to enjoy physical contact with Kuroo. How would he ever be able to give that up? /

  1. Sit back and wait for the magic.



Anxiously, Kenma rubs at his eyebrows and looks for his phone to set a timer.

He’s got two messages from Kuroo, but he can’t bring himself to read them now. Kuroo is probably just asking for extra training, but it’s way too warm outside today. Also, Kenma really, really doesn’t want to tell Kuroo what he’s doing at the moment.

The towel sits wobbly on his head, a turban to hold his hair in place. He sets the timer and opens up a game, his heart hammering away in his chest.

His thoughts go back to Kuroo and Kenma kind of hates himself even more for this stupid idea.

He can feel his lower lip hurting from biting it relentlessly.

/ Things had started to change by the end of his first year at Nekoma.  
Naturally, Kuroo had convinced him to join the volleyball club. It had been fine from the beginning on, but Kuroo had been a year older than Kenma. He had had his growth spurt and while Kenma still consisted of lanky arms and legs with pointy knees and ugly shoulders and hips, Kuroo had started to grow into his body.  
Obviously, Kenma hadn’t been the only one to recognize that. Ever so rarely, a girl would confess to Kuroo, the smart, cunning, good-looking vice captain of the volleyball team.

With the changes of his body, his character had changed as well. Kuroo had gradually become flirtier with people around him. He had let touches linger a little longer, had begun to smile at girls and it had started to scare Kenma more than he’d ever been scared before.

He hadn’t wanted to lose his best friend to some girl.

It had even been worse with the third years still there.

They all had exchanged phone numbers and it hadn’t taken long for Kenma to figure out that the third years had put Kuroo into a group chat with them.  
When he had asked what it was about, Kuroo had shrugged, his face tinted pink, saying that Kenma wouldn’t be interested in it anyways.

It had stung more than anything else before.

One day the third years had had lunch with Kuroo and, as usually, Kenma had walked right up to him.

“So what did you think of her?”, he had heard Koha, one of the third years, ask Kuroo.

He had hummed: “She’s okay. Could be blonde, though.”

Kenma had slid onto the bench next to Kuroo, asking “Who?”

The second Koha had been about to answer, Kuroo had put his hands over Kenma’s ears, interrupting their senpai.

Irritated, Kenma had slapped Kuroo’s hands off of him.

“You can’t corrupt him like that. He’s our team baby.”, Kuroo had hissed.

Team baby. Wow. Now this had stung more than the last comment. It must have been a day for new records of accidentally hurting Kenma.

“I’m _not_ a baby, Kuroo. Seriously.”, Kenma had replied, brows furrowed, before he had turned towards Koha, ready to listen to what his teammate had to say.

“It’s porn. We’re talking about porn.”

“Oh.”

All eyes had been on Kenma then, leaving him even more uncomfortable than those words.

“Yeah, but it’s rather boring, you know.”, Hani, another third year, had explained, “It’s mostly us two sending videos and pics to judge, and Kuroo stating that they’d be hotter if they were blonde.”

“Shut uuup”, Kuroo had groaned, crossing his arms on the table to hide his red face behind them.

Kenma hadn’t really known what to say, so he’d kept his mouth shut and focused on his food instead.

A couple of hours later, another girl had confessed to Kuroo and maybe Kenma had felt a teeny bit relieved by the fact that she had had brown hair. Yet he had still felt weirdly out of place.

It had taken him another three months to figure out why. /

  1. Wash your hair and let it dry



The cool water does nothing to calm the anxiety bubbling up underneath his skin. He presses his eyes shut, afraid of seeing the white liquid washing down the drain.

/ Kenma had been thinking about porn for a long time then. He had even played with the thought of asking Koha or Hani for resources, but he had been too afraid of their reactions. Instead, he had searched the internet for porn and holy cow, there was a lot of smut on there.

However, it had only made him more self-conscious, because he hadn’t understood the fuss about it. A majority of the videos and pictures simply left him uneasy and even if he had already occasionally felt the need to masturbate before, none of the videos had turned him on.  
  
Again, another proof that he wasn’t normal. 

By sheer luck he had then stumbled about a post of someone describing exactly what he had felt, asking if they were broken. A third party had left a comment suggesting to read up on asexuality.

Kenma had slowly accepted to claim it as a part of his identity. At first, it hadn’t helped the fact the he felt different and wrong, like there was yet another barrier separating normal people and him, but after one fateful night, he wanted nothing more than to go back to the complete lack of sexual attraction.

It had started out the way all Friday and Saturday nights had: Kuroo and he had decided on a sleep over. To be fair, it had been less of a decision and more of an unspoken rule, but whatever.  
They had stopped sharing their small beds a while ago, but they still set two futons on the ground right next to each other, no matter at whose house they were staying at.

Kuroo had never stopped being a touchy person, even as a teenager, and they had spent the evening together on the floor of Kenma’s room, the smaller boy nestled between the legs of his vice captain. Instead of playing a game, they had settled for a movie and as always, Kuroo had absentmindedly started to play with Kenma’s hair.  
Overall, it had been nice and it had pushed all negative thoughts inside Kenma’s head away.  
Until the beautiful, tall and _blonde_ main actress had initiated a steamy make-out session with the male antagonist.  
Kenma had felt Kuroo’s fingernails, that had previously been lightly trailing on Kenma’s head, still.

Slowly, his best friend had scooted backwards, putting some distance between their bodies. Within seconds, Kenma had been cold and an empty feeling had settled in his stomach. 

Later that night, Kenma had been unable to fall asleep. Kuroo had dropped dead the second the lights had been turned off, but the weird feeling inside Kenma hadn’t vanished yet.  
He would have tossed and turned, but as soon as they had pulled the blankets over their legs, Kuroo had reached for Kenma’s arm to snuggle it.

Why had Kuroo’s reaction thrown him off like that?

_Why do I feel hurt?_

A soft trail of moonlight had illuminated Kuroo’s sleeping face and Kenma had found himself observing it in detail. The soft curve of his eyebrows, the perfectly straight nose, the slightly opened, red lips.

 _Are they as soft as they look?_ Kenma had wondered.

His gaze had started to trail down further, to Kuroo’s exposed collarbone. He had thrown his blankets of. His shirt had ridden up, revealing the abs Kenma had seen countless times while in the changing room. He had barely stopped his hand from stretching out, to trail the outlines with his fingertips.

It had hit him like a volleyball to the face then. /

  1. Toner (optional)



Kenma ~~needs~~ wants his hair to be a shiny, golden blonde. The way the almost white hairs are framing his face now makes him look like a zombie and he hopes, prays, that it’s going to be better a soon as the final color is done.

/ After realizing that he wasn’t as sex-repulsed as he had thought, things had only turned out worse for Kenma. Being demi, in love with, and sexually attracted to your best friend was shit. Yes, it was love, without a doubt. Kenma would travel to the end of the world for Kuroo, hell, he had even gone to parties of their classmates for him.  
Morning after morning, Kenma now told himself that there was no way Kuroo could ever be into him, that he needed to get over this… this whatever it was.  
The pang of hurt he had started to feel whenever Kuroo’s head whipped around to stare after some blonde girl, the way he couldn’t be close enough to his friend, his heart racing all the time, because Kuroo kept on holding onto him in some way or another.  
It was too much. Kenma had no idea how to handle it any longer.  
A couple of weeks ago, the guys had rated the girls’ appearances on a scale of one to ten.

That day, Kuroo’s number three (Rika) had confessed to him on their way to the gym. She was tall, blonde (like all of Kuroo’s top 5) and beautiful.  
Kenma had skipped practice that day and cried underneath his blankets for hours.

The next morning, he had learned that Kuroo did in fact turn her down. According to him, Rika might have been one of the hottest girls, but she was also shallow and mean, and therefore no dating material.

Kenma had suppressed the sigh of relieve that dared to escape his mouth. /

The thing is: He’s convinced that Kuroo is never going to see him as a potential date. No matter how much Kenma changes. But he can at least try to appeal his crush a little more, right? Nothing might ever come out of it, but at least it might be a way to keep him physically close.

  1. Enjoy your new hair color



Kenma stares in the mirror and feels his throat closing up.

_No, no, no!_

He looks utterly horrible.

His hair is yellow instead of golden, making his pale skin shine even paler, but there are black patches on the top of his head. Fuck. He looks like a dead body.

It gets hard for him to breathe and he can feel the first panic attack in a long time creeping up on him.

While sinking to the floor, his shaky hands are dialing Kuroo’s number.

“Kenma? What has taken you so long?”, Kuroo pics up the phone immediately.

“Kuroo”, he croaks, “Kuroo, I messed up so badly.”

He tries to focus on the voice on the other hand, but there’s no air left inside of him, no way he can breathe.

“I’m on my way. Give me five minutes. Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay? Where are you?”

“Bathroom”, he replies, his face wet with tears.

It’s probably a stupid idea to call the one you wanted to impress when you look like shit, but Kuroo’s the only one who can help him through this and Kenma is in desperate need of his best friend.

It takes Kuroo even less than five minutes, before he lets himself in with the hidden key and stumbles into the bathroom.

Kenma has been able to calm himself down a bit, though he’s still shaking and ready to cry. Fortunately, he had been smart enough to put his hair back up in the towel.

“Hey…”, Kuroo kneels down next to Kenma, eyes wide with worry, “What happened?”

And he’s stupid. So stupid. He should have just bought black hair dye and pretended like this never happened, but Kuroo is here now and he’ll never let this go.

“I… I tried to dye my hair.”, Kenma admits, not meeting Kuroo’s eyes.

Thankfully, Kuroo doesn’t laugh, but asks: “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“I look worse than Falbi.”

“What? Did your dye your hair red?”, Kuroo asks surprised.

“Not exactly…”, Kenma’s voice trails off.

Kuroo nudges his shoulder: “Hey… Let me get one look at it, okay? If it’s really that bad, I’ll run to the store and get you a nice, black color? Or whatever else you want. Okay?”

Kuroo’s hands reach out to the turban on Kenma’s head, making him all but jump out of the way. Which is impressive, considering he’s still sitting on the floor.

“Kenma, come on. Please?”

And he knows that Kuroo is not only asking for permission, but also for Kenma’s trust.

The thing is: As much as Kuroo’s presence sends Kenma’s body into this frenzy, hectic state, it calms him down at the same time.

Now, when Kuroo extracts his hands, Kenma let him slowly pull of the towel.

Through the blonde strays falling in front of his face, he watches Kuroo’s eyes grow even wider than before, suddenly making a choking sound.

Kenma buries his face in his hands: “See? I _told_ you it’s horrible.”

It’s silent for what feels like an eternity.

Kuroo clears his throat and Kenma can feel how he carefully brushes the hair out of his setter’s face.

“It’s really not, Kenma. Trust me, it’s h- … it looks good.”

“People are going to talk about it. They will want to talk to me about it.”, he knows he’s whiny, but he can’t help it.

“It will be fine.”, Kuroo says and pulls Kenma into his arms, resting his head on Kenma’s still damp hair, “I promise. They’ll talk about it for a day or two and then their attention is going to be elsewhere.”

They stay like that for some time, until Kenma takes a deep breath, showing Kuroo that he’ll deal with the situation.

“If you want to, we can send a selfie to the team. You can deal with them online, if that’s easier for you?”

That’s why Kuroo is going to be captain next year. He’s the smartest person Kenma has ever met.

He nods, but doesn’t try to free himself from Kuroo’s arms.

When he finally turns his head and locks his eyes on Kuroo’s golden ones, he can see a faint blush creeping up on his friend’s cheeks.

 _Interesting_.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah... Not much story, but I just needed to write this for myself. 
> 
> If anyone wants to make a better use of this idea, please go ahead. And then tell me about it so I can read it :D
> 
> Also, you might have noticed that I don't know anything about bleaching your hair, but I hope I used the information I got on Google correctly.


End file.
